The primary aim of the School Psychology program is to develop health-service psychologists whose activities support the educational and psychological well-being of children and youth. To accomplish this, the program has three specific aims:
- To prepare health service psychologists who are competent in the foundations of individual and cultural diversity; professional behaviors, interpersonal skills, communication, and reflective practice; and ethical, legal, and professional standards.
- To prepare health service psychologists who are competent in assessment, evidence-based prevention and intervention, indirect service delivery and collaboration, and supervision.
- To prepare health service psychologists who are competent in the science of psychology, including research, measurement, and evaluation; the basic content areas in scientific psychology; and scientific psychology in schools and schooling.
The training curriculum of the School Psychology program reflects a specific set of project objectives (referred to as competencies) that are subsumed under the following 10 domains of knowledge and skills, which reflect the program’s goals:
- Individual and Cultural Diversity: Effectiveness in health service psychology requires that trainees develop the ability to conduct all professional activities with sensitivity to human diversity, including the ability to deliver high-quality services to an increasingly diverse population.
- Research, Measurement, and Evaluation: Science serves as the foundation of health service psychology. Consequently, health service psychologists should integrate science and practice, which requires knowledge, skills, and competence sufficient to produce new knowledge, critically evaluate and use existing knowledge to solve problems, and disseminate research.
- Ethical and Legal Standards: Being knowledgeable of and acting in accordance with codes of conduct; ethical standards and principles; and relevant laws, regulations, rules, and policies governing health service psychology is essential.
- Professional Values, Communication, and Interpersonal Skills: Professional values, communication, and interpersonal skills are foundational to education, training, and practice in health service psychology.
- Assessment: Having the knowledge and skills concerning fundamentals of measurement and assessment, and the use of assessment tools in a non-biased, reliable, and valid manner, is critical within health service psychology.
- Intervention: Having the knowledge and skills concerning the theories and tactics used to guide the design and implementation of effective interventions for children, adolescents, and families is essential for professionals within health service psychology.
- Indirect Service Delivery and Collaboration: Indirect service delivery (e.g., consultation) and collaboration are integral to the activities of health service psychology.
- Supervision: Supervision is grounded in science and integral to the activities of health service psychology.
- Scientific Psychology in Schools and Schooling: Scientific psychology (i.e., discipline specific knowledge) serves as a cornerstone of identity as a psychologist and orientation to health service psychology. Individuals practicing within health service psychology must be knowledgeable in the history and systems of psychology, have basic and integrative knowledge in scientific psychology, and understand methods of inquiry and research.
- Schools and Schooling: Having knowledge of effective educational practices and the skills necessary to deliver psychological services in school settings are critical for those who practice school psychology as part of health service psychology.
The program embraces the view that a school psychologist is a scientist-scholar-practitioner who works in a variety of settings and assumes diverse roles as a doctoral-level professional. The integration of scientist, scholar, and practitioner roles provides a basis for graduates to assume leadership responsibilities in the field of school psychology.
Faculty embrace evidence-based practices (e.g., diagnosis, assessment, intervention, consultation, evaluation), and they have allegiance to a broad-based behavioral orientation in research and practice, including for example, applied behavior analysis, cognitive-behavior therapy, social-learning theory, and ecological-behavioral-systems theory.
The program emphasizes a problem-solving approach to service delivery including direct intervention and consultation at the individual, family, and system levels.
The graduate program strongly emphasizes the preparation of psychologists for academic and scholarly careers, along with a sound and comprehensive focus on the practice of psychology in the schools and related applied settings.
Because the program’s emphasis is on the application of psychology in education, students are required to demonstrate competence in the substantive content areas of psychological and educational theory and practice.